Take a moment and step into a happy time machine, Sun Devil fans. You won’t have to travel too far into the past; a few items from your current wardrobe should do the trick. The destination is late March, and things were better – a lot better – for Arizona State baseball. The Sun Devils swept rival Arizona that weekend, a trio of wins that seemed to symbolize a changing of the guard on the diamond in the Pac-12’s southernmost state. Amid all that joy in Tempe, many perhaps forgot that the college baseball season is a long and often arduous one, with twists and turns that last right up until Memorial Day weekend. Recently, ASU has had to learn that the hard way.
The Sun Devils dominated their rivals for most of that jubilant weekend from March 24-26. They trailed at just one point and cruised to a sweep on Sunday afternoon. When left-handed pitcher Timmy Manning gleefully jogged from the dugout as the final out was recorded that day, he wielded a groundskeeper’s broom as he slapped hands with his teammates behind the mound at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. The gesture not only rubbed salt in the wound for the wounded Wildcats but also motivated them. Since that moment, the two teams have played twice. Once in a non-conference battle in Tucson on April 19 and once more on Tuesday morning in the opening contest of the Pac-12 tournament in Scottsdale.
Arizona has been the one laughing in the latest two quarrels, outscoring ASU 32-3 in those games; the latest came in Tuesday’s 12-3 trouncing. Arizona scored four times in the first frame and never looked back, dominating the Sun Devils for the second straight time and sending Arizona State’s season to the brink. The Sun Devils will meet Oregon State for a second and final pool play game on Thursday morning, another 10 am contest. Having entered the day projected as one of the last four teams in, it’s safe to say Willie Bloomquist’s squad needs a win against the Beavers to qualify for a regional. A loss will all but end their season, and even a win won’t guarantee they have their name called for the field of 64.
Bloomquist gave the starting nod to Josh Hansell for the tournament opener, a curious decision given Hansell’s volatility this season, even after being much improved compared to 2022. In fairness, these days, the ASU pitching staff isn’t exactly an ideal picture of depth. Hansell was bad from the jump this morning. He allowed four runs in the top of the first as the Scottsdale birds still sang from the trees beyond left field. After recording the first out of the ballgame, a home run was followed by two walks, an RBI triple, and a sac fly to make it 4-0 Wildcats. Hansell then surrendered another solo blast in the second to end his quick morning work.
Bloomquist said after the game that he didn’t want to start any of his usual weekend starters on short rest. With Jonah Giblin apparently out with an illness that has been plaguing the team of late, and the ASU skipper’s hands were tied. Curtis was sick last week before throwing 45 pitches Saturday, while Dunn pitched Friday night. Timmy Manning threw almost 100 pitches Thursday, but with four days rest and a Tuesday being his normal bullpen day, it is fair to wonder why he wasn’t considered for at least a few innings.
Will Rogers, the big bat catcher turned outfielder turned slumping bat and now relief pitcher, entered the game following Hansell. Arizona continued to pile on, facing the hard-throwing right-hander. He walked in a run, then served a fastball to heralded slugger Chase Davis who laced a three-run double to right center. Davis’s double blew this game wide open and turned the lock on an abysmal performance for Arizona State.
Bloomquist told reporters that he was embarrassed by the team’s performance. It can’t be the first time he’s felt this way about what his squad has done over the last four weeks. A once-promising campaign has been reduced at a last desperate gasp for a tournament bid.
ASU, once projected to host – yes, HOST – an NCAA Tournament regional as a top-16 national seed, will now be nervously awaiting selection Monday, hoping to see its name called as a three or four-seed in someone else’s regional. We knew regression would come with the schedule being considerably tougher on the back half of conference play, but the free fall that has taken place over the last month has been shocking. Arizona hasn’t had the best year, but it’s still a great program. Winning three of five against your in-state rival is nothing to be ashamed of, but the fashion in which ASU dropped these last two games certainly is. Today, and last month, Arizona was the tougher team, and as an ASU alumnus, that is something that Bloomquist must be seething about as he tries to build a winning tradition and a healthy clubhouse in his alma mater.
ASU kept its season afloat with a series win over UCLA this past weekend, but the quality of that win isn’t much of an accomplishment with the demise of the 2023 Bruins. A series win over Oregon State on April 21-23 has aged nicely, but other than that, ASU doesn’t bring a whole lot to the table in terms of tournament resume quality wins. It split with Washington in Seattle, split a midweek series with Cal State Fullerton, lost two out of three at Oregon, and was swept by Stanford and at USC. The latter two three-game sets greatly hurt, considering just one win over No. 5 Stanford would feel as if the weight of the world lifted off of ASU’s shoulders at the moment.
They had that chance in game two of that Stanford series on May 6. With a one run lead in the top of the eighth, 2023 ASU "Fireman of the Year" award winner Blake Pivaroff pitched with two outs and two on. The award is given to the most clutch reliever; an arm relied upon to “put out the fire” in a tough jam. Pivaroff was clearly phenomenal in this role all year, but eventual Pac-12 player of the year Alberto Rios got the best of him in this situation. Pivaroff hung a changeup, and Rios blasted a three-run homer that proved to be the difference.
At USC the following weekend, Arizona State experienced a bizarro world scenario in which its potent lineup, which had been not just one of the conference’s best but one of the nation’s best all year long, simply did not show up. ASU had been losing games because of its pitching, but it allowed just 11 runs over three games in LA. The offense scored just two, didn’t hit a single home run, and never led in the series. ASu got pitching good enough to sweep, certainly good enough to take two of three, and they got swept.
It’s white knuckle time for this team, and truthfully that has been the vibe for the better part of two weeks now. ASU's character has been tested and tested again, and for two games last week, it looked like ASU was going to pass with a C-. Nothing is certain now besides the fact that a win against Oregon State is a must.
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